YOSHIMURA Hiromi * A Brief History of Japanese Studies in Tibetan Buddhism ** In this essay I would like to present a brief history of Tibetan studies in Japan. I shall introduce the beginning and the development of Japanese research on Tibetan Buddhism. Recently, Sadakane Ayako published a bibliography of Tibetan studies. This bibliography includes not only articles and books in Japanese language but also those in Chinese. It is a very convenient bibliography for researchers of Tibetan subjects. Among those articles and books she collected, the earliest publication is a book titled Rama-kyØ enkaku ラマ教沿革 (A History of Lamaism) by a Japanese scholar which was published in 1877 (Meiji 10). Hence, it has been already over a century since Tibetan studies have started in Japan. For convenience’s sake, I will divide the succession of Japanese researchers into three generations. The first generation belongs to the period from the end of the Meiji period to the end of the TaishØ period, namely from around 1900 to 1930. The second generation belongs to the period from the end of the TaishØ period to the middle of the ShØwa period, that is from around 1930 to 1960. The third generation covers the time since the 1960s. Of course, such classification cannot be taken too strictly since some of the researchers were working in times covering two generations. Also, some scholars whose main research took place in the period of the second generation are still living and some of them are quite active. Representative scholars of the first generation were Kawaguchi Ekai, Teramoto Enga, Aoki BunkyØ and Tada TØkan. They played the initial and crucial role in developing Japanese Tibetan studies, and their research is of significance even today. They were scholars who actually visited Tibet, absorbed the knowledge there, made Tibetan Buddhism accessible to Japanese Buddhist circles and significantly stimulated Japanese academic interest in Tibet. Kawaguchi Ekai arrived in India August 1897. After having studied the Tibetan language in Darjeeling, he traveled through Nepal to Tibet. He returned to Japan in May 1903. His well-known book Three Years in Tibet published in English describes his journey. After his first trip to Tibet Kawaguchi undertook a second one from September 1904 to September 1915. He brought back with him Buddha * Professor for Buddhist Studies at Ryukoku University (Kyoto). ** This essay is a revised version of an article published originally under the title “Japanese Tibetologists and my Tibetan Teacher” in Ryukoku RikØ Jånaru No. 6 (1994) No. 3: 95-99. The manuscript derives from a presentation given on The Tibetan Day in February 1992 in San Francisco. Japanese Religions Vol. 33 (1 & 2): 97-102 98 JAPANESE RELIGIONS 33 (1 & 2) images, the Tibetan Buddhist canon and Sanskrit manuscripts. Based on Tibetan texts, he translated some Mahåyåna Buddhist texts into Japanese, such as the Saddharmapuˆ∂ar¥ka-s¨tra, the Vimalak¥rti-nirdeßa, the Ír¥måladev¥-s¨tra, the Guhyasamåja-s¨tra, etc. Then, in November 1898, Noumi Hiroshi and Teramoto Enga tried to enter Tibet from China, but at Li-than they were prevented from doing so. Unfortunately, Noumi died during this trip. After some time, Teramoto Enga attempted again to enter Tibet (1899), and this time he succeeded. He stayed in Lha-sa long enough to study Tibetan language as well as Tibetan Buddhism. After his return to Japan he published some Japanese translations of Tibetan Buddhist texts he had collected in Tibet, such as the Gsum bcu ba (Tri◊ßika-vijñapti-måtråta- siddhi), the History of Indian Buddhism by Tåranåtha, etc. And he also published Tibetan reading texts for students of Tibetology. Next, Aoki BunkyØ and Tada TØkan traveled to Tibet in 1912. They undertook this trip on the orders of the famous chief abbot of Nishi Hongan-ji, ºtani KØzui, who had organized the first Japanese expedition to Central Asia (1907) in order to collect ancient manuscripts and to investigate Buddhist ruins. Aoki BunkyØ returned to Japan from his trip to Tibet in 1916, and Tada TØkan came back in 1924. These early scholars brought to Japan texts of the Tibetan Buddhist canon, non- canonical texts and Buddha images which, together with their own knowledge of the living tradition, made a tremendous impact on the subsequent development of Japanese Tibetology. In fact, each Tibetologist even today owes much to them. In this sense, we Japanese Tibetologists call them the pioneers of Japanese Tibetology. When they traveled to Tibet, these early scholars also clearly stated the initial purpose of Japanese Tibetology. Kawaguchi Ekai, for example, wrote in his book SaizØ ryokØ-ki 西蔵旅行記 (Travel record to Tibet): “I started reading the [Chinese] Buddhist canon with the idea in order to make Buddhist sutras easier to read and easier to understand for Japanese society.” But he was wondering about the explicit meaning of Chinese Buddhist texts when being translated into Japanese. He continued to write: There are many extant Chinese translations of certain texts, even though the Sanskrit original text is supposed to be only one. Translations of the same sentence vary depending on the translator; sometimes they are the same and sometimes they are different. I realized this. Furthermore he stated: The most remarkable thing is that you can find some translations which convey completely different meanings of the same text passage. Some portions are missing in one translation, whereas these parts are contained in other translations. Some translations present a sentence order different from other translations. However, I believe those holy translators cannot have been liars. So there must have been some reasons for these discrepancies which I have to research. Or there must have been different original texts. What is the truth? This I cannot judge. I thought the only way to solve these problems was to obtain the original texts. YOSHIMU R A : A BR IEF HISTO ry OF JAPANESE STUDIES IN TI B ETAN BUDDHISM 99 Then Kawaguchi learned that the original Mahåyåna texts existed in Nepal and Tibet, and that the sutras translated into Tibetan represent a more exact and accurate meaning of the original texts. When he realized this, he expressed his thoughts as follows: With respect to academics it is very interesting and valuable to study Buddhist texts by comparing the Tibetan texts with Chinese texts. Therefore it is necessary to go to Tibet and to study the Tibetan language. As mentioned before, Kawaguchi’s words clearly express the purpose of Japanese Tibetology at the time when it had started. Its aim is first to understand Mahåyåna Buddhism correctly, and second to understand the Mahåyåna s¨tras through comparative studies not only within the Chinese context, but also with sources from other languages, including Tibetan. This purpose has been the fundamental trend of Japanese Tibetology for a long time. And it is still a main trend in a certain sense. Besides the scholars who traveled to Tibet were also other well-known contemporary Tibetologists, such as Matsumoto BunzaburØ, Kusunoki Kido, Toganoo MitsudØ, and KatØ Genchi. They were active during the period from the end of Meiji to the TaishØ period and can be called the first generation of Japanese Tibetologists. Next, the second generation consists of scholars who received Tibetan education from those of the first generation. Among them is Hatano Hakuy¨ who compiled a bibliography of the Tibetan Tripitaka preserved in TØhoku University. Having grasped the Tibetan Tripitaka as a whole, he tried to understand the character of Tibetan Buddhism by analyzing the order as well as the translators of s¨tras and ßåstras compiled in the Tripitaka. This method was traditionally used in Japan when Japanese scholars tried to understand the development of Chinese Buddhism. Indeed, the last part of a translation of a certain text contains a lot of information about the translator, the period of the translation, the place of the translation, etc. Later in his studies Hatano focused on Tantric Buddhism. Another scholar of the second generation is Susumu Yamaguchi, who was educated in France under Prof. Sylvain Lévi. He applied a unique comparative method to Buddhist studies in Japan for the first time. He studied not only the original Sanskrit texts, but at the same time compared them also with their Chinese and Tibetan translations as far as possible; he also tried to avoid misreading the texts. Furthermore, he made an index of terms in these three languages. As a result, Japanese studies of Buddhist terminology developed rapidly. Among the scholars of the second generation are also Nagao Gadjin, Yoshimura Sh¨ki and SatØ Hisashi, but they are a bit younger than Hatano and Yamaguchi. However, the character of these three scholars is unique in that they actually visited Lama temples in Mongolia in order to study the Tibetan language. This was before the Second World War when Japanese were in a position to travel in this area. During the period of the second generation, Japanese Tibetology expanded its field very quickly, as can be seen in the case of Hatano and Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi’s method was inherited by Nagao, who in his studies compiled indexes 100 JAPANESE RELIGIONS 33 (1 & 2) of the Mahåyåna-s¨tråla◊kåra, the Madhyanta-vibhåga-bhåΣya, etc. His contributions to Japanese Buddhist studies have been tremendous. Yoshimura Sh¨ki composed a Tibetan-Japanese dictionary on the basis of the personal word-cards he had compiled when reading Buddhist texts. Since he was one of the assistants when Hatano was editing the bibliography of the Tibetan Tripitaka, Yoshimura felt the necessity of collecting word-cards which contained also the corresponding Sanskrit words as well as Chinese translations. In his translation of the Rgyu-bπi (a Tibetan medical text) he was assisted by his wife Masae, who was a medical doctor.